"Miracle" on a highway in the United States: a man was found alive trapped in his truck almost a week after having an accident and having survived on rainwater, when two fishermen found the remains of his vehicle.
Two men were fishing in a river in the state of Indiana, bordering Canada, on Tuesday when they saw something bright in the stream that passes under Interstate 94, the highway that connects the Great Lakes region with the plains of the northern United States.
As they approached, they realized that there was a man trapped behind an airbag. "As soon as I touched his shoulder, he turned around, he was waking up. He was alive and very happy to see us," Mario García, who had gone fishing with his son-in-law, declared at a press conference. "He's never seen anyone so relieved."
They immediately called the emergency services, who intervened with difficulty: the images released by the police showed the vehicle embedded in an embankment between the river and the bases of the bridge.
The 27-year-old driver was then transported by helicopter to a nearby hospital, where paramedics reported that he had "serious injuries" and his prognosis was life or death, according to Glen Fifield, of the Indiana State Police, in a press conference held on Tuesday night.
"It is a miracle that this man is alive today, and that these two gentlemen have made it to this stream," he added.
For a reason yet to be determined, the truck ended up under the bridge of the highway on which it was traveling. Its structure was almost impossible to see from the road, according to authorities.
The driver told the good Samaritans who rescued him that he had been trapped there since last Wednesday, almost a week, and that he could not find his phone. He "said he had been yelling, screaming, but no one could hear him."
And although it probably owes its salvation to the mild temperatures of this year's Christmas weekend, the cold would arrive on Tuesday night, and "it probably wasn't going to last another day," Garcia told American television.
